The Hockey PDOcast - NHL Team Tiers Through The First Month of the Season

Episode Date: November 11, 2024

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Thomas Drance to put every team in the league into tiers based on how they've looked in the first month of the season, and how likely they are to contend. If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

since 20th PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Philippopovic. Welcome to the Hockey PEDOCast. My name is Dimitri Filippovich and joining me for our Sunday extravaganza here in the PEDOCast is my good buddy Thomas Trans. Tom, what's going on, man? It's a very special episode of the PEDAOCast because it's not every week that we record from your weekend birthday getaway. We're in a log cabin.

There are storms everywhere. our partners are up here, a bunch of your friends. It's been a cozy, lovely West Coast weekend, but still filled with lots of hockey, and I can't wait to discuss it all with you. Yeah, we're out here on Vancouver Island. We should, you know, set the scenes so that the listeners feel like they're here with us

as a live studio audience. We've got a stormy Sunday night here out. We're cozy in this cabin. It was a bunch of wood paneling. We're having a great weekend. There's a hearth. There's a hearth. As you said, our partners and also our friends

are preparing a nice pizza dinner with your uni. And of course, what do we, what do the two of us do? We go to a separate cabin to get away from them so that we can sit here and record our show. The jokes right themselves. Jokes right themselves. I mean, listen, we promise the people every Sunday, we get together and we're going to make a thing of this this season. People have really been enjoying it.

And so I feel like just because it's my birthday weekend and we're not in town, that's not a good excuse to break the trend, right? This is what we thought we'd do today, to have a little bit of fun. You know, we've been doing this for what, three, four, weeks now as the season's gotten going. We've really, I think, along the way, uh, picked our spots in terms of getting into the minutia and sort of deep diving, individual players and teams and things that have caught our eye. We thought this weekend, though, we'd mix it up a little bit. Now that we're sort of in the meat of the season, we've got a good rhythm and flow going here. We're going to do

something a little bit different. We're going to take a bit of a step back. Um, and we're going to take a big picture of you of where we're at with the league right now. We've got about nearly 15 games or so from every team so far. We've got a pretty good sense. I know that you, generally like 25, 30 games especially to get a real sort of sample of data to work with. But I think we're getting a sense of where teams are at, how they're playing this season. And so what we're going to do is we're going to start at the bottom. And speaking of the jokes writing themselves, you and I typically do this. And then we spend a disproportionate amount of time talking about the inferior,

less interesting teams. And then we run out of time and we start squeezing in stuff at the back end. So we're going to try to pace ourselves a little bit better today. But also let's, you know, stick with what works. You don't want to mess with a good bit, Tim. We've got to try it into a formula, and we're certainly going to deliver on the goods here again today. And we're going to take that step back.

We're going to look at the league from a Stanley Cup odds perspective, right? In terms of how the market views the teams right now, I think that paints a pretty good picture of sort of the league's hierarchy. Last week, you and I spoke about the power imbalance, I guess, between the two conferences between the East and the West, and so that's certainly going to plant this conversation. But we're going to go team by team. We're going to try to pass along a few notes.

on each one along the way. And we're going to talk about kind of like take stock of where we're at with these teams, whether we feel like the market is judging them correctly or incorrectly, where maybe there's some disconnect, I guess, between the two. And we're going to go from there. Yeah. And look, I know 30 games for me is where I sort of start to, I talk about this a lot, as you mentioned, but at 30 games, I start to talk about what teams are. You know what I mean? And at this point in the season, in my view, we're still trending toward having a large enough sample where we can talk about true talent level with with more confidence with a more fleshed out view of what a team's identity is. And what I sort of like about doing this exercise now,

Dim, is to some extent we're still calling our shot. If we're going to try and say that this team is that, this team is that, man, it could look an awful lot different a month from now for the most part. It's only the real extreme ends of sort of this exercise where we have anything approaching the level of certainty that we will have, you know, by the time it's early December. So I find this a fascinating time for this exercise in addition to being just like a fun way to swing around the league and spit some hot takes. Well, and we're still early off in the season that I think what you see with stuff like this. There's still the reality of the current situation, I think, lags a bit behind whatever the

perception was heading into the season in terms of expectations. And not that that's necessarily wrong, I don't think after 13 to 15 games you want to just be throwing all of our previous data sets out of the window and starting from scratch because you can get in trouble of like kind of overcorrecting a longer way. But I do think especially like once we get to the top teams, I think that's where it plays in more so because you see I think a bit too much respect given to teams that maybe people were higher on heading into the season. But yeah, I think there's going to be some certainly some interesting and kind of telling cases along the way. So let's start at the very bottom. And this is sort of my, I can't present this as a

hot take because ultimately, I think, beyond the true diehards and maybe the respective fans of these teams, no one really cares. It's not going to be very consequential for how the 24, 25 season is remembered. But the sharks are last, and I think that makes sense based on the fact that what we thought heading into the season, the ducks are slightly ahead of them. And honestly, maybe my sort of personal bias and disappointment in one of these two teams is coloring my perception. But right now where I'm at with them, I think, the ducks are right there with the sharks, if not below. Yes.

And I'd say that largely because you and I, for the millionth straight year, were high on the ducks or at least excited about them. We had a bunch of their players on our guys list. And a lot of our concerns heading in the sort of temperate our expectations were, all right, we did not like what we saw from them towards the end of last year. Greg Cronin had them playing a very specific style that wasn't to our preference. And that's continued. We just saw them play a game against the Vancouver Canucks in particular last week where I thought

all of these issues are really highlighted in that there's no structure, there's no coherence, there's no plan. And in particular, my biggest concern is there's no environment in place right now for a lot of these young players that we like to take positive strides and develop. And that's arguably the worst place you can be in as a rebuilding team. And so I think just looking at this Ducks team, I can't help but be more disappointed than pretty much any of the other 31 teams. Is anyone other than Leo Carlson trending in the right direction among that Minchukov, Zellweger, Great, maybe, that class of guys, yeah. Yeah, that class of guys, it feels like everyone has taken a step back.

We're at Mason McTavish centers the fourth line territory. We're at Trevor Zegris complains publicly about playing the wing territory. I mean, none of this makes sense. And, you know, I had pretty high hopes for Greg Cronin when they first hired him. Ultimately, a guy who came, I know was extremely highly regarded in a pair of pretty progressive organizations in Toronto and Colorado. and I even have time for the idea that, hey, you know, we're not going to be a top-notch team this year, but we're going to play the right way, we're going to focus on playing structured hockey

with our skill players, we're going to learn how to win. And I thought down the stretch last year, the fact that a young group was pretty bought into that approach and pretty disciplined in that approach, even if it was dull to watch, I thought, hey, look, you know, I think this is a smart coach. I'm sure this will work. I watched that Canucks game, the one that you brought up, And was anyone even checking Quinn Hughes? Like, did they even think that? Yeah, there was a really blind side of the like, well, turns out we need more tape on this guy because he looks pretty good.

Unbelievable, right? Like I've never, Quinn Hughes and Philip Oronick haven't had that much space up top since November of 2024. Like, it's been that long since anyone let them interchange at, you know, freely up high in the offensive zone. It was, it was hard to explain. And I think there's got to be some cause for concern. given how this is all trending, both for individual ducks, players, and for the team itself. They're better than this. They should be. And I guess that's the one thing why, the one reason why I guess I'd defend the odds makers having the ducks ahead of the sharks is, which of these

teams is more likely if there was a change of voice, right? A change of approach to be a rocket ship with a shot at winning the cup. Neither is going to. But the ducks, I suppose, should have shorter odds given that at least you can see that path, even if you know it's, you know, fools gold. Well, when you look at the respective timelines of these two organizations, the Ducks are theoretically should be so far ahead based on how long they've been at this part of the league. And yeah, I joke with you that if you watch that game and you weren't playing paying close attention, you were on your phone, you're talking to someone, you look back up at the screen, you just be like, oh, the Canucks are on the power play again. And nope, it was 5-15. Yeah. It is the movement

for the Canucks in the offensive zone look like they had an extra man, but they really didn't. And so that's incredibly alarming. Ultimately, this team is not going to be meaningful from a contending perspective, but you would have liked to see the players individually taking strides. And to your point, I can't help but feel like it's coaching because it makes no sense that a team with this many young promising players is struggling this much offensively, particularly, right? This is a team that has 15 5-on-5 goals total in 13 games, which seems almost impossible to do

what you have, not only the young players that have. have offensive skill, but also legitimate NHL veteran players that are kind of in supporting roles, that this should be at least a baseline level of competency that they haven't really displayed the sharks quickly on them. Maclin Celebrini, who I know arguably no one in the industry was higher on than you were heading into the season in terms of immediate impact, we had to kind of delay it a little bit because he'd play the debut and then got hurt. But ever since he's come back, he's showing all of those things that you were raving about that game against Minnesota, which they did lose, the multi-goal effort from him, the second one in particular where he just makes someone

miss kind of near the blue line. And then as he's drifting towards the middle of the ice, no look rocket top corner past Mark Andre Fleury. Yeah. So think of beauty. I know. He's just already operating at sort of like he's got the speed of the game already down with less than what five NHL games under his belt. Well, and that nuance, right? The understanding of, you know, if I don't look, I've got a shot at, you know, if you're looking at the net, the goalie's going to read it a certain way. they're going to be prepared a certain way. I mean, that goal is created by like an extraordinarily nuanced level of deception that is pretty rare even among top scoring and HL players.

The details in this kid's game is what I think people are going to be surprised about as they sort of get a chance to watch him play, you know, 10 more, 15 more games over the next six weeks. But you're seeing the signs of a very special first overall pick, not an ordinary one, but one of the ones we remember. It's amazing what expectations can do to you in terms of bias, right? Because this is the sharks team that is ultimately, what, 4, 9 and 2? And I'm like, you know what?

I'm excited about what I'm seeing. I feel like there's progress. And then you look at the ducks, it's like, all right, they're 4, 7, and 2, but I'm like, man, this is disastrous. And even things, little things like, you know, Worsowski goes in to play the Canucks and they're sharp about it, right? They attack the Canucks off the rush. Do they have the horses to pull it off?

Not really, but they were smart in their approach, thoughtful in their approach. I think it's making sense. And then there is a much higher guys who should be in the NHL quotient up and down their lineup. It shows when you watch them play. I think the sharks could be fun down the stretch. I don't have high hopes for them not being among the worst teams, but they should be an okay watch that doesn't crush my soul, which I can't say about Anaheim at the moment. I feel like with Celebrating on a last note on him, he's still not, even in the top two or three,

I believe in Calder. Fonds for the season, that's probably just because he hasn't played nearly enough games yet so far, but I feel like the opening is there because none of the players in this class have really necessarily stood out. Logan Stankovin certainly has a production, but as we've spoken about,

I think what's working against them is the fact that he played those 45 games essentially combined between the regular season and playoffs last year, and I feel like most voters probably won't even think of him or regard him as a rookie because it's like, yeah, this guy's already just an established NHL producer. So I feel like the door is open there, celebrating if you can stay on the ice to get there. Okay, this next kind of bucket of teams, the Montreal Canadians, the Columbus Blue Jackets, the Chicago Blackhawks. My one quick thought on that

is the Blue Jackets, I think arguably deserve to be much higher than this, maybe not extremely so, but they still are a team that is in the positive of 5-1-5 goal differential, is playing a much more cohesive style of hockey under DeAnvison this season. And he's, everything we just said about Greg Cronin, the blue jackets were guilty of last year under Pascal Vincent. And I feel like Dean Everson has allowed like Marchenko and Chinokov certainly. And now Varankov's back in the lineup, some of these guys to actually flourish and make the most of their talents. And so I just feel much higher about them and their sort of outlook right now than I did heading into the season and also compared to a few of these other teams that we just mentioned in this bucket. The Varankov edition is going to be a ton of fun.

But I think that's part of this that makes the blue jacket stand out a little bit. The Montreal Canadians are putrid defensively. I mean, if you're managing an 890 behind the Montreal Canadians right now, I'm pretty sure you're really good. Sam Montembow, for example, I know his say percentage is dipped. And so he's come under criticism. I mean, that Montreal Canadiens team is the most permissive in hockey and maybe the most permissive I've seen in a number of years. you know, the Chicago Blackhawks have Bedard. And I know the maybe the offense hasn't been off the charts,

but I watch that Blackhawks team play. And, you know, it's often Falino and Taravidon and Bedard. And they're actually controlling games at the top of the lineup. Like they can hang, even with good teams at the top of the lineup on a night after night basis. It's just there's not enough there beyond what Bedard brings. and I think that's going to be a multi-year project to turn around for the Blackhawks. It's not enough to have Badaard outscoring opponents

5 on 5 and winning just those minutes. You need more. Columbus, at least you're having a really good time watching them play. Yeah. Like at least there's depth, there's depth of talent, there's actually a little bit of balance. They're playing organized, but they're still playing up-tempo.

That feels to me like a team that's got a real shot to trend in a more imposing direction as the season goes on. So, yeah, I agree. They should be elevated probably above this. Like, for example, the Philadelphia Flyers who were about to turn to, I mean, I would much rather have a bluejackets long shot Stanley Cup bet than a Philadelphia Flyers one. Yeah, just some of the Blackhawks quickly on Bedard, because we had this question in a mailback towards the end of last week. The listener was asking whether we should be sort of disappointed, I guess, or felt wanting more from Bedard in a year or two. And we typically see these generational young players when they come into the league.

year one, they make an immediate impact year two. They sort of really figure out the speed of the game and everything clicks and they take that next monster leap into superstard. And I feel like we're seeing, we haven't seen it from a pure production perspective to reflect this because he hasn't really been scoring individual goals himself and there haven't been as many sort of wow highlight real moments within these games from Bardard. But you just look at the profile and all of a sudden, even last year we was producing, they were getting caved in even with him on the ice at 515. this year, they're in the positive in pretty much every metric across the board. And so I feel confident that the goals and the points will start coming for Emin Bunches,

and the fact they're winning the minutes along the way reflects that he actually has taken a big stride this year just hasn't really shown up in the numbers yet. You mentioned the flyers there. I feel like the note on them is a lot's been made recently of Matt Be Mischkoff's scratching, right? The healthy scratchings and sort of, I think the natural inclination is to see that. you see someone covering the team, local beat writer or a national insider be like, so it begins, which goes scratch. Then all of a sudden, all the quote tweets are, you know, trying to down on John Tortorella

and everything that's happening. And ultimately, you do want to see him on the ice. I think, though, it's okay to reset. Like, he struggled a little bit five-on-five. It's a natural adjustment to an entirely different pro league than the one he was playing in previously. And the fact that he already just essentially stepped into a situation where they had the worst power play in the league last year.

And all of a sudden, he's showing that he can. very adequately right out of the gate quarterback it, move around the ice, occupy multiple positions, set teammates up is massive for this organization. So they still clearly have a lot of work to do. But I got to say, I'm not worried about Mitchcove at Al from the perspective of like, oh, no, they're not handling them properly. Like, it's fine. Just playing 19 minutes a night or 18 to half minutes a night. And just watch him play, right? Like, if you're watching Mitchcove play on a nightly basis, you know that this kid competes. and I'd bet you, given that engine, given that motor that he's got, given the way that he

competes, that Tortorella actually probably has a lot of time for him, right? Just knowing what players have tended to see their minutes make under Torterla, I'd bet, I'd bet Mitchkov, even if, you know, he is occasionally doing some stuff that makes Torts to want to pull his hair out, that baseline competitiveness is going to ingratiate him with that head coach and probably keep him in the lineup. I have concerns about the flyers. I have concerns about John Tortoralla, but I don't think the handling of Mitchcove should be among them.

You mentioned the five-on-five struggles. I mean, they're losing his minutes pretty decisively. Yeah, and he only has the one assist there so far. And he's not producing him. It's kind of been a bit of a black hole. So sitting him down, giving him some space, see if he can figure out how to make more of an impact outside of power play minutes. I think that's a sensible thing to do this.

at this point in the season, especially given that he's been so high usage to this point. The next group of teams here is, well, before I just went out of the flyers, the point that I wanted to make was, I think this is another example of what I was alluding to with the expectations because they overperform last year, right? They should have made the playoffs realistically. They kind of faltered down the stretch and fell off because of that lack of talent. And now this year they come out of the gate, they start losing a lot more. Essentially, I think if you just flipped or reversed the two seasons, right? and this was the year they were having

they had previous year. Sure. And you'd be like, all right, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. But I feel like the fact that they felt close and then they added Mitch Cobb,

I think has a lot of people feeling like, all right, this is a massive regression or a step back. And it is from a standings perspective. But I think ultimately, if you were watching last year, you'd feel like, all right,

this is kind of par for the course for an organization that's still trying to figure out what the ceiling is going to look like and how they're ultimately going to get there with the players they have in place. I also think you know with Philly or more importantly,

than you or I knowing or even your listeners knowing, they know what they are. You know, it would be one thing if they'd seen last season's success and triple down. And yeah, it made a bunch of win now moves to expedite what it is their building. Danny Breyer avoided that sort of. You wanted to lose last year. You could tell like he was almost getting frustrated by the fact that they were so competent because he was like, man, I wish this wasn't happening. Right. So the, but the Breyer Jones axis, I think they knew what they had.

And that's self-evaluation, I think, is an underrated quality in hockey management teams. They knew what they had. They knew what they were. They stayed focused on the long term this summer. So the fact that they've arrived and sort of more closely matched what we probably should have expected from them last year really shouldn't be an issue, given that it's consistent with what appears to be sort of a long arc toward making this team competitive durably again. Okay, now we've got another grouping of a team.

teams here they were going to finish off par one with before we take our break. And I want to lump them all together, even though the odds actually maybe fittingly so, have the Cracken kind of in no man's land based on the gap between them and the Flyers and them in the next team. I'd argue, though, that they probably should be in this tier despite their early season struggles. And it's the Cracken, the Flames, the Blues, the Red Wings, and then the Utah Hockey Club. Now, I think the conversation of Cracken versus Flames is interesting because you and I were talking about this on your show this past week and trying to figure out kind of the tiering of who's better from those two teams in terms of the future outlook because I think heading into the season we felt

like the Cracken were at a significantly higher tier than the Flames because we, you and I, you know, maybe incorrectly so thought that the Flames had a shot for being the worst team in the league. Now they've come out of the gate. They started with that winning streak, right? There's still hanging around kind of that playoff bubble right now in the Pacific, whereas the Krakken have been losing a bit more so. So how do you kind of parse the first month or so that we've seen from those two teams in terms of revisiting our preseason expectations and whether we should or whether we should kind of stick with the line of thinking we had previously? No, I think we need to revisit our thinking on Calgary, but I don't, I also think we shouldn't overreact to what we've seen from

the Krakken. And in particular, The Seattle issue, right, feels largely isolated to their backup goaltender. It is the most sharp contrast currently in the league, which makes so much sense for the organization that sort of was birthed with ill-fated long-term contracts for both Chris Dreger and Philip Grubauer. I mean, a really tough sort of start to their franchise in net. They have Joey Decord. They've signed Joey Decord. A lot of people wondered what they were doing when they've signed Joey Decord. And to that long-term deal, given his track record,

well, he's come out and been the same player that he was, you know, from late November on last season, Grubauer, I mean, they're one in five. They're one and five in Grubauer's games. And across their 15 games, they're four points back of Calgary. I mean, that's it. Like, that's literally it.

If they get average goaltending in those backup goaltending games, they're probably, you know, right there dead heat with the, with the Calgary Flames. Now, of course, you could note, well, the Calgary Flames have two good goleys. Yeah. Right? The Calgary Flames have two good goalies who are performing. Well, that's part of their edge. I, you know, I just think there's not a lot of space to separate these two teams. We've seen hints, moments where it looks like Maddie Baneers is about to come back and sort of be the guy that he was in his rookie season. Hasn't quite sustained that yet. They've been without

Vince Dunn for large segments of the season. You know, there have been. and like Montour have visiting his baby and on and on. I mean, I think there have been some disruptions to what the Cracken are doing. I still like what I'm seeing from them five on five for the most part. I still think they're a team that should be better than Calgary over the balance of this campaign. But a ton of respect to how Calgary is holding this together too, the preparation, the thoughtfulness about how they're playing. And then some of that deceptive skill that you're getting from guys like Zeri or, you know,

Coleman out competing guys on any given night. I mean, I'm put it this way. I'm not ready to declare that the Calgary Flames are for sure going to rank ahead of the crack in its season's end, but I'm definitely capitulating on the idea that the Calgary Flames are among the NHL's worst teams. I think there's a lot of impressive stuff that Huska and company have been able to do to keep that group's spirit up, to keep, you know, the constant nagging questions about what they're going to do with all the veterans on the roster given the, you know, Haniffin departure and the, you know, check departure. Yeah, late old.

Little bit of departure. Yeah. I mean, it's very rare that we see a team tear down like that in terms of losing veteran talent and to be able to withstand that and then come back with a bunch of veteran players who definitely didn't sign up to be part of a rebuild and to be this like hardworking, resilient, thoughtful team in terms of how you play and where your efforts level at and battling back against superior. year clubs, man, it's pretty hard for me other than outside of Spencer Carberry, it's

pretty hard for me to think of a coaching job that I am more impressed by in the early going than what we're getting from Huska. Yeah, that's an important differentiator when you hit the nail in the head where Joy DeCord has a 914 save percentage plus five goals save above I expected Philip Grubauer and his starts, 880 and negative in goal save, whereas the flames, and they're alternating pretty much 50-50, right? Villarra's played eight games, Wolfs Plate 7. They're getting pretty much consistent baseline production from those two guys. And Wolf in particular is so cool to watch in a league where every goalie is a robot and looks exactly the same. He's a bit of a unicorn in that sense. My final note on the Flames before we go to break here, or actually we're going to

cover Utah as well quickly, but on the Flames, I think I've said this before, but just watching them every night and a night out, even this past week, right? They had this game in Montreal, then they go to Boston. Both games, if you're a bad team that's, thinking already as an organization about the lottery and potentially picking really high in the first round, we see these teams just fade into the night in some of these regular season games where you start the game, you go down two, three goals, the other team just throws a haymaker at you and you're like, you know what, we just got to give it to them. Tip our hat, they're the better team, we can't hang with them. And you never see that from this flames team, even when they are

outmatched, they're just constantly fighting back. So resilient, so competitive, way more entertaining I think than they have any right to be. They obviously have good NHL players on the team and young players who are making names for themselves. But I thought even if they were hanging around 500 this season, it would look ugly along the way. And it really hasn't. Like that game against the hurricanes that we've discussed previously,

I mean, I was one of the most fun games I watched of the season where they just got absolutely blitzed by a really lively hurricanes team we're going to talk more about. And they're like, all right, you know what? We're going to absorb this and we're going to make a game of it. And the third period was incredibly competitive. and so I give them a ton of credit for just sticking with it and essentially being one of the tougher outs in the league right now, Utah. I think, you know, they're around 500 now.

I think they're 6-6 and 3. They started really strong. Then they had the injuries on the blue line and they faded a little bit. But beyond the young players that were still incredibly excited about, the important note on this team is that they're one of the rare teams in this kind of tier of the league where they're not a Stanley Cup contender by any means. but if they are hanging around in the middle of the season and they are competitive, I do feel like it makes sense for them to obviously with the future in mind to make themselves better and give themselves a chance. Because not only do they have a new owner, but they also are in a new market.

And so they want to build a fan base. They want to inspire excitement about them, kind of hook people to the sport and to the brand and the product. And so it makes sense for them to view this year as like a legitimate building block. And if the results keep following, I think we're going to see that from them, right? And so not that they're going to become a massive buyer at the trade deadline and be trading firsts and prospects for rental players, but I think they're more incentivized to, I guess, add to their present product and their present lineup than a lot of these other

teams are right now. And so I think that would be an exciting sort of selling point for me as like, yeah, Utah could be very frisky down the stretch. I appreciate that we kind of yada yada the red wings and blues in this tier, by the way, before we fully move on. I think that's fully appropriate, frankly. They're much the same as they were last season. Utah, though, I think the focus on them here is really interesting because they do have shorter Stanley Cup odds than the other teams in this tier. And that's dead on, not because of what they are today, but because of what they could be. And I don't just mean you, right? You're talking about them putting their stamp on something. And oftentimes when new ownership takes over, it's the idea of like new owner syndrome.

I think that's a classic Bill Simmons bit where an owner comes in, wants to make their mark and make some errors, make some mistakes along the way and trying to make a splash, build the big team, have immediate success be the good guy who's taken over the club. Well, in Ryan Smith, you do have a first time NHL owner, but an experienced professional sports owner, of course, owns the Utah Jazz. And there's this moment that I'm really fascinated by for this Utah hockey club where in a league where save percentage at the moment is dip below 900, right? Where teams can sustain double digit shooting percentage. You do get to a point where true talent, shot quality, the ability to drive offense actually becomes more important in terms of deciding games than, for example, how well your third line carries play. and I do think that necessitates a change in how we talk about and frankly weight the quality of teams, right? We don't live in a world anymore where Ruslan Fedatanko is as likely to score the Stanley Cup winner as Sam Rinehart. You know what I mean?

We live in a world where Connor McDavid is able to run roughshod over an entire bracket on their way to the Stanley Cup final. Honestly, almost more like an NBA team. So if Smith, with Smith sort of in here thinking about that splash and Utah having in their previous incarnation as the Arizona Coyotes spent years as this like laundromat franchise accruing picks and futures and on and on. I mean, the Utah team is in this fascinating moment where the next guy who shakes loose. The next, Cichuk doesn't want to extend in Calgary or Reinhart. is on the mover. Jack Eichel and the Buffalo Sabres have fallen out over, over his back treatment, you know, and I don't know if it's going to be like a Mitch Martiner or an Elias Pedersen, which, you know, I'm mostly bringing up just because I'm

Canadian hockey media. Yeah, it's actually obligated to reference it at any 100%. But by point being that like, when we see star players move, they move because something silly has gone wrong usually. It's usually interpersonal. It's very rarely about hockey. and we see them go for huge prices and every time a team buys those guys, they win. Well, not only is Utah in a position with an owner who probably is focused on making the big star-laden splash given his experience in another sport,

but Utah has so many future assets that any team that finds themselves in one of those unfortunate situations is going to be hoping that it's Utah on the phone calling first. they're just, it feels like this perfect storm where at some point they're going to do something, very much like the motionless yakuza and Homer Simpson's front yard. Like, I'm waiting for them to do something and I know the moment I close the door, they're going to do something cool. Well, and the important differentiator between them and the St. Louis Blues team you just mentioned

also in this grouping is exactly that, where we'll see what the timing is and when it happens, but at least the opportunity to do so is there for them where they have that flexibility to pounce on that opportunity and make that type of a move that could kind of alter the franchise trajectory, whereas the blues, the reason why I feel like we're so sort of just disenchanted with it is like, all right, even if you want to do something and we know that Doug Armstrong has wanted to do something in the past and has in previous incarnations, they just lack really the contractual flexibility, the ages of the players, kind of they're walked into this core of the team. And so it's like, all right, well, I'm not exactly very excited about that. All right, Tom, let's take our break here.

And then when we come back, we'll jump right back into it, and we're going to get to the top of the league finally and continue our tiers in the NHL. You're listening to the Hockey Piedocast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network. All right, we're back here on the Hockey-Ocast, joined by Thomas Trans. We're doing our Sunday wrap-up show. Tom, we're talking about teams within the tiers perspective, especially the Stanley Cup odds and kind of where we're at right now with them, a few notes on each one as we work our way up through year. we're up to this tier now with the sabers, the penguins. I would honestly include the Islanders and senators here, even though they're priced a little bit differently.

I know this is going to be incredibly on brand for me because I seemingly cannot go through a single show when we chat without throwing a little jab at the penguins. I don't think they belong in this tier with these teams. I believe they have a minus 15 goal differential so far at 5 on 5. we've seen, as we've documented, incredibly poor defensive play. I think this is just a name brand value thing, right? Where anyone that has Cindy Crosby especially, but if Gennie Malk and Eric Carlson, you're just going to have a certain level of, like, deference and respect to them. But I don't think based on what we've seen from them in the season, there's any reason for confidence that this is a blip that these 15 games aren't a sign of things to come because I just like, you look at a statistical propon to eye test,

especially defensively. The speed. They're arguably a bottom five team on that end of the ice. And so that's just not going to turn around. It is. It is. Like, it's the raw speed. Their raw level team speed, especially from their best players, just it's not high enough at the moment. And that's why their rush defense looks, I mean, it is also poor, but I mean, we're still talking about Mike Sullivan here, right? We're still talking about. Is that a good thing or a bad thing, though? It hasn't been a good thing this year, but I'm pretty calm. confident that he's a very detailed, smart, structural defensive coach. Yeah, because that's been his... Eventually, you reach a point, though, where someone's been with an organization for this long,

that it's like... For sure. I'm not saying that anyone could come in and with the footspeed of this team and the construction be like, all right, we're going to have them playing differently. And well, like, you watch that game against the hurricanes earlier this week where they just got pummeled, and I know that for a while before posting the deserved to winometer, which is my least favorite thing in sports, but I think this was kind of ironic because the hurricanes were... finally early in that game they were up like four nothing or whatever but the shots were incredibly lopsided for the penguins and so the deserve for when o meter had it as like penguins 91% deserving to win this game and it was hilarious to see that the hurricanes first off were on

the other side yeah of that pendulum but also you watch it within that game and to your note there you see exactly what's wrong in this one instance i forget which of the goals it was the hurricane scored but puck is deep in the hurricane zone and it's behind their net and the hurricanes have a four on three advantage in terms of bodies there to like win a battle and retrieve the possession. And within three seconds or five seconds, they turn that into a three on one going the other way. Right. And the penguin's ability to like move backwards and transition from offense to defense is so incredibly slow. You just have guys stuck in this sort of gray area where they're like, it's like this like sticky mud that they can't seem to get through in the neutral zone. And so

their ability to get back is just impossible. And especially against a team like the hurricanes, who are obviously in a different stratosphere. They're just able to just punish them. Let's bookmark this game and get back into it for the, because it was very much on my radar as something that I wanted to talk about when we got to the hurricanes down the line of this podcast.

But yeah, I mean, just to sort of reiterate my Sullivan point, if they were to replace Sullivan, we'd be worried that their defense would fall off further, right? I think it's mathematically impossible. I don't think they could possibly be worried. Yeah, it's tough, and I just, I fundamentally think it's a personnel issue in that they just look slower to me than most of the teams they play.

And I don't think that should be a surprise given the age and composition of the group. And the fact that honestly, I felt like this is something I saw happen in slow motion in Vancouver over a decade. And I watch this Penguins team play and it like very much looks like late Sedin era Canucks where, you know, even if at the top of the lineup there's like five guys that can still hold their own. own. It's just, it's, it's not close. No. All right. Do you do notes on, on the sapers of the Islanders who are in this tier? Or I guess we included the senators as well. And I'm much more encouraged based on what I've seen from them than any of these teams. I think the senator, like, the only comment I'd have is that I think the senators belong higher. Uh, the results haven't been there. But if we believe that Linus Almark's going to get, get right to some extent, and I watch the

senators team play right now. And I think they're playing decent defensively. So I do expect that the environment is good enough and I think Allmark is good enough to get sort of back on track, although I guess the old Boston Bruins pixie magic discussion, which I'm sure, or black magic discussion, which we'll come back to later on too. I mean, maybe that's at least one area in which it appears to still be working where the ex-Bruins goal tender immediately falls off a cliff after leaving them. But what the senators did to the Bruins yesterday, for example, I mean, they just completely controlled that game. I don't think the Bruins had a shot in the third period. Yeah. It definitely looked like, and I know that the Bruins had stacked together a couple wins

previously before that. Yeah. But it definitely looked to me like two teams moving in very different directions, which it would make sense based on where they've been over the past decade essentially, right? So like that's very explainable and justifiable. But it did, it comes for everyone. It did look like that. Yeah, well, I will note on the senators, I know their profile is a bit of a head scratcher to me because you would think that based on their depth chart and how much they've invested in the young forwards they've drafted along the way and we like a lot of their ability to create offense. Their power play has been terrific. I believe it's still top five in the league and you're seeing it manifested there. At 5-1-5, they haven't really been able to fully unlock themselves

in terms of creating consistent chances and we've sort of seen that be their downfall a little bit in a few of these games. But defensively, to your note, their top. their fourth in inner slot shots allow their top 10 and expected goals against. So it's almost kind of flipped the script in terms of what you'd believe a young team with this type of depth chart would be playing like. And so I do think the skill is there that they should be better at 5-1-5 offensive generation than they have been. So if that is in there, all of a sudden I do think they move up into a much higher tier than some of these other teams that we've mentioned. And after that, you've got the capitals who are obviously, in my opinion, still being woefully

underrated here just because I think there's still a bit of a lag period when it comes to from expectations heading into the season and then you don't want to necessarily course correct or overreact too quickly. But if they keep playing this way, I mean, after the eight spot that they just put on the aforementioned blues, like that offense is so fun and so lethal and so well-rounded in particular that I feel like the capitals are just, you know, arrow is pointing up significantly here. And there's no way they should be priced or viewed as inferior to the Bruins, in my opinion, who are ahead of all these teams somehow still. And maybe that's sort of indicative of the fear of like, every time we seemingly write off the Bruins,

they get it together and they put together the stretch where once again they're in the playoffs, they're beating someone in round one, usually the Leafs. And it's like, oh, it's the Bruins again. I don't think that's going to be the case this year based on what I've seen. I know that it's like, fool me, fool me once. It's like, fool me 12 times in a row. Significant shame on me. But am I wrong here?

The Bruins should not be ahead of the capitals in any sense based on what we've seen this. I don't know that the Bruins should be ahead of the senators based on what we've were just talking about, right? But I'm leaving the light on, and not just like dimly, I'm leaving the light on a neon light in the evening for the Boston Bruins to just figure this out, randomly black magic it. But it does feel like they're out of tricks. Like I'd like to see them wriggle out of this one for real.

Yeah. Tom, the Capitals right now are fourth offensively, unexpected goals generated. And four defensively and expected goals against. Like, they're good. I don't, I don't know what we need to see. This isn't some sort of like, I know that early on it's like, all right, well,

they're just shooting the lights out, right? They're score on everything. That's not necessarily going to continue. But you also look, and it's not necessarily just one player or one line that it's like disproportionately carrying anything. I feel like if anyone struggles or regresses, there's going to be someone to pick up the slack. They can beat you in so many different ways.

They're playing so much faster. They're generating. so much more as well, especially compared to last year, just an entirely different team. Like, I think there's a lot of carryover in this stuff from the previous season, but I don't think that applies to the Washington Capitals because they're just not the same team they were last year. But, like, we rarely see teams bring in this many players

who are all in their relative primes. Generally, when we see teams like, all right, we brought in a bunch of guys. It's like a bunch of guys, it's like a bunch of guys who are necessarily the players that used to be. In this case, it's like a bunch of guys who are really good and still in their prime, and we just added all of them. Yeah.

We just, I don't know. almost like, you know, I think about it like the, one of the reasons that that golden Mitzvitz group, right, was they were all 27. Mm-hmm. You know what I mean? Like they were all at that sort of age where they were, you know, men in the league, like more business-oriented, ready to take that step. Feels like the capitals were able to replicate on a much smaller scale, something like

that in terms of how they bolstered their death. And, you know, I do think that we're at a point where, sure, is there, are they going to shoot and convert at the clip that they're converting at in the early going? Are they going to have 105 PDO at the end of the year? Probably not. In fact, almost certainly not. But they're going, they're scarier when they go nuke right now because of what they're generating. Because there, I think, is a core of steel there that, you know, certainly has my attention

in the early going. Yeah. Oh, there's no way they're going to keep being the first team. ghouls, F5, and then you look, and it's like, all right, they're second and expected goals and high danger chances. Right. So there's a good foundation there to build off. It might cool off, but it's, they're still going to have something to fall back on, which

we know is kind of what it looks like when a team is truly better than the other and they can't hit their fastball is that's what falls off, the ability to generate. This team looks like they're going to be able to generate against just about everybody. Yep. All right. Predators, lightning. And then there's this, there's this tier after that it's like, Wild, who I'm surprised to see that low, I guess, because obviously their results have been

off the charts this season. And Gil Caprizov, I had this note where, like, he has, I think he's up to six three-point games this season, three or more. And then he's been held to two or less or under two, sorry, just like a one or two-point game, uh, less times than that. Like, he's pretty much in half his games right now. Just like, all right, pencil in three points from this guy. It's absolutely absurd what he's doing. Caprizov is another one where I think, that a league where you're having the top guy or having a superstar level contributor matters more today than it did in terms of influencing outcomes 10 years ago. I feel like Caprizov is the perfect example of it where at this point he's like one of those, I honestly think we need

to think about him the way we think about one of those great NBA players who in their prime, you know, it's like their team's flawed, there's this, there's that, there's this. it doesn't really matter they've got this guy, they're going to be dangerous. I feel like Caprizov has ascended to that level. And I also feel like that level wasn't something that we typically had even in the NHL six or seven years ago. I find that exciting though. Yeah.

I think that's what he's doing right now, the way that he takes over games and, you know, every night, like every night. I think he's been the reason the wild won something like, or played as well as they did something like 12 of their 14 games. You know, like, it's an every-night thing right now. It's unbelievable to watch. Yeah, 27 points in 14 games and somehow not even leading the league of the moon because Nathan McKinnon is also at that pace.

Yeah, I'm with you on that. I don't want to talk too much. I know I just mentioned the Predators, the Lightning. I feel like we've spoken enough about both those teams early on. We can revisit it later. Now we get into the meat of it. This is where I should light up because this is in your backyard. You've got the Kings, the Canucks and the Golden Knights.

The non-eotentially tightly stacked here. And I think this is case and point of not only us, but also Vegas itself, not the Golden Knights, but in terms of the market being like, I don't know what to make of it. So we're just going to put everyone here together because they're that tightly packed. Well, so I think there's a couple things happening here. I think all of these teams might be higher if not for the market's regard for the Edmonton Oilers. So I think there's two things that are really interesting about the Pacific Division being tightly grouped. One is the markets believe that the Edmontonlers are the best team in hockey.

And based on what we saw the Edmonton Oilers due to the Vancouver Connecks in the third period last night. They just have a gear where they can put it on you, and especially when some of the pucks are actually going in, right? As I noted, it's like it wasn't for a lack of effort or generation. Even with McDavid out, they just weren't getting the results and now they're finally starting to get those. But they completely held this Connucks team that's actually been far better offensively than the past, like completely out of dangerous air as the ice. Like that's what's scary about that game is that the Oilers showed up, played hungry. I think Rick Tocke's quote post game was their big boys game to play, right?

It's just like, yeah, that's when the Oilers come and attack you like that, they are the best team in the league. They are. And they made the Canucks look like what you see teams look like when they're out of answers in a playoff series, where there's just no chances coming. And even if you get back in the game with a sick deflection and, a bit of sharp play, you know, you're not as close to the games as you think. And once that becomes clear over 60 minutes, it can be dramatic. That's what the others look like. So I think that's one of the things that this reflects. The other thing is, Vegas at 15 to 1 stands out to me right

away as being the most mispriced. And I do wonder if that's a reflection, too, of the market taking like gamblers, betters and bookies all taking more placing more weight into Vegas's uninspired underlying profile.

Especially in five-on-five. Yeah. Which is, you know, different from how markets would have functioned even three, four years ago, but I think reflects

maybe a more data-driven type of better, you know, watching hockey and maybe investing in some hockey than they would a few years ago. Well, there's seconding goals right now.

and a lot of that is because they're first in shooting percentage, right? And I think it's a reasonable amount to expect them to keep an essentially shooting 15% as a team. I will know the top of the lineup is driving a lot of that, especially the top forward group. I know Mark Stone is once again banged up here. But with the level Ikel and Barbershop we're playing at, I expect that to continue. The power play is absolutely outrageous. And we noted this at the top of the year, right, where they had this interesting gambit in terms of lineup construction where they're committing so much, unlike a lot of teams to centers and defense in particular, that they essentially just had to take a bunch of lottery tickets on young cheap wingers to fill out the lineup. And I think we're seeing

that paid dividends as well. And it's also, I think, going to be reflected by this exact profile you're describing where I do expect them to generally out shoot or outperform those underlying numbers offensively, where a lot of these guys aren't going to profile as great sort of possession players, but they're also one-shot scores. And if you have the infrastructure, structure the Golden Knights have to put them in positions to essentially just do that, which is stand there and shoot the puck. They're probably going to score on a disproportionate amount of their shots. So they're also, as we've noted, whatever the depth chart is right now, they're going to add one more star player to some extent between now and the end of the season. So

I'm not worried about it. Yeah, that Nevada, Utah axis where you know that they're going to shop in a totally different way than the rest of the league. So we should probably rush this along, my friend. I think we're doing fine. We're at the top here. Yeah. Let's go. Yeah. I will note on the, on the Kings, a team we've also been critical, always well in the past just based on our high expectations for them and them not living up to it, especially stylistically. Their defense is once again really strong and the elite. And if you look at, I know Bifield's starting to get going now. He's scored a couple goals here recently over the past week, and they had some good wins along the way as well. I know they took a bit of a step back

in that Kinnak's game. Unfortunately, they just ran into the machine that is Quinn Hughes, and they just had no answer for it. But that's the thing is like, by the midway point of that game, even before the Canucks took the lead, it was clear they had no answer for the Canucks at the top of the lineup. You know, Quinn Hughes, that J.T. Miller self-match that the Canucks do at the top lineup. And that, to me, unfortunately, feels like, you know,

that glass ceiling you keep bumping into. They specifically keep bumping into. So it was one of those, you know, the team that doesn't have the Caprizo, right? the team that's shy, that one guy, and at least you've seen enough steps, I think, from Clark, for example, this year that you hope that maybe he can get to that. Like, they have some outs for a guy in-house who can grow into that player. Byfield's another one. I think he's played really well the last two weeks, but, you know, that Canucks game was a perfect example where there's still that other level that he's going to have to hit. He's going to be the reason that they win most

nights and they need somebody to be that guy. Now, okay, let's rattle through this. You've got a bunch teams, and this is why I felt comfortable with our timing, because when you got the avalanche, the Rangers, the stars, and the Maple Leafs closely packed like this, I feel like we're generally familiar with where we're out with those teams. I don't think we necessarily need to rehash it. I will note the next team on that is the Devils, and the note that I wanted to pass along is, I saw this, I believe our pal, CJ Trissuro, posted this. It's from Micah McCurdy's HockeyViz website, and it's sort of the heat maps, depending on game script and kind of game score. And this isn't unique to them in the sense that generally we know score

effects when teams are down, they're going to, you know, look much better and pile it on. When they're like when they're down within a couple, one goal, but even two or three, what they're generating right now is downright terrifying for the perspective of like they're never out of a game, right? And they're kind of back to where they were two years ago where they've got that sort of gear, you just mentioned with oilers where it's like they can just turn it on and escalate it. quickly, they're going to have games, of course, where they're just up early and they'll be able to defend as well.

But that they have that in their bag, they're never really out of any of these games. And so I feel very confident with kind of where we're's kind of progressing here and trekking along with the devil. So I just wanted to note that because it gives them so many outs in every one of these games, even if they fall behind early. Yeah. And then moving into that final tier, right? Yeah.

The Carolina team is up next, sort of. Yeah, I know they just had their eight game win streak snapped by the avalanche and McKinnon just had an awesome game. Yes, he's one to do. But yeah, I can't believe the 180 that I've done on the hurricane so far this year because stylistically, like, it's just, they're doing everything they did towards the end of last year after they had against all and they're carrying it over even after losing it.

Yeah, they're carrying it over and still, like, probably need to add some skill to the lineup, right, to truly unlock what it could be. But their approach to generating offense and attacking teams is completely different. And even if they lose to the avalanche, they're playing the sort of game where I think at the very least they're going to go into the playoffs and we're not going to say, uh, or we're not going to be worried. Yeah. They're playing the sort of style that gets goal lead every year. And it's like, oh man, another historic goaltending performance. Uh, how could this happen to the same team for the seven straight year? Right. Uh, at the very least they've, I, they're, I think, playing a type of hockey

that's going to give them a better shot of actually breaking through, uh, whether they actually have the talent or, or, or, or, or another team that might have to add it, uh, before the end of the I mean, maybe they get Nkishin before the playoffs too, right? Which could be a scary prospect, but that that Pittsburgh game to me was just such a good indicator that some of what we've seen in terms of their rush attacking game and just vibrancy in the early going is here to stay and is actually evidence of a more fundamental rethinking about how they go about manufacturing offense. And the thing that I like about it, first off, Marty Natchez is finally like the fully unlocked,

fully realized beast that I think we expected him to be. I like the Jack Roselovich, who just recently got his first assist in the season after putting up nine goals. It's like the irrational. It's like the irrational in NBA terms, the irrational heat-jick scorer. You bring it off the bench and he just gives you a couple quick buckets. And then I really like what I've seen from Jackson Blake and Jack Drury down the lineup as well as kind of like this infusion of easy, cheap offense that I think they've sort of been lacking in the past when those spots have been typically devoted to kind of like defense first grinders. Jackson Blake does a few. Jackson Blake and Connor's area are both guys where maybe the physical tools.

don't completely jump off the page, but occasionally you're watching them and they do something subtle but incredible that you, I don't want to say you've never seen it before, but that you're like, oh, those are two guys that get me to do the video game meme where you sit upright while watching a game. Both of those guys have sneaky, deceptive sort of offensive tools.

And it's been a lot of fun to watch. And I would include the hurricanes in this like top top tier with the Oilers, Panthers, and Jets based on early results. and I think that's completely fair. And like the one final team, we've talked about, the Oilers and Panthers plenty. The Jets, who, I think what, they won 14 of their 15 games.

I had the only lost at the Leafs earlier this year. They have a plus 36 goal differential in those 15 games. Connor Hellebuck had his shutout streak snapped like at the end in Garbage Night by Rupa Hintz, but he had had 96 consecutive saves spanning three games before that. So yeah, I mean, we'll revisit that. I think we're going to have a lot, especially if these results continue. I know some of it is fortunate from a percentage of perspective.

but they're also second and expected goals against and have Connor Hellebuck and their forward group is firing on all cylinders. So this jet team is for real. Yeah, I mean, team that's won, what? 14. 14 to 15, yeah, 14.1. So, yeah, we know that's not sustainable, but it's a lot of fun. Look,

the cool thing about that game last night is it's Aiafalo and it's Kupari, you know, and it's... And it's Nick Eelers on the top unit powerplay. Who would you? That would be a good thing. I mean, that's a good thing. Yeah, but I think my point is that there's so much different weapons up and down line up and even guys that aren't weapons but are just good players guys like

your appleton you know your cupari tier guys that can make a difference for you any given night so you get these perfetti you know um like sort of pops up for a dead point night you have the top line they have so many different ways that they can win and i and i feel like we're getting quickly to a point where you know we're just going to be like hey they really got to manage hellabucks Yes. To make sure they don't bump into what they have in a pass which is he's tired. Every single year.

And, you know, Helibuck's at the point where the questions now are, can you win when it counts? And the answer is yes, provided that he's not playing. Put it in a spot to do so. Yeah. Come on. Yeah. So really impressive stuff from the Jets and just that depth and the way that they're getting, the way that they have different guys that can be you, I think is one of the reasons

why they've been able to sustain something that, of course, is still inherently unsustainable. Yes. All right, Tom, this was great. Hopefully people enjoyed it. I think we provided a nice view of the league right now. We'll be back. You and I will next Sunday for our usual shows.

Everyone, check out Tom at the Athletic where he covers the Seattle Cracken and also listen to Canucks Talk on the Sports Night Radio Network. We will be back in a couple days here with more shows. Until then, thank you for listening to the HockeyPedio guest streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network.